Wednesday, February 16, 2011

'No more deluded by reaction, on tyrants only we'll make war.'

The Road Not Taken

"Across the Middle East today, millions of citizens are voicing their aspirations for liberty and for democracy. These men and women are expanding boundaries in ways many thought impossible just one year ago. . . These impatient patriots can be found in Baghdad and Beirut, in Riyadh and in Ramallah, in Amman and in Tehran and right here in Cairo. . .The day is coming when the promise of a fully free and democratic world, once thought impossible, will also seem inevitable. The people of Egypt should be at the forefront of this great journey, just as you have led this region through the great journeys of the past. A hopeful future is within the reach of every Egyptian citizen -- and every man and woman in the Middle East. The choice is yours to make. But you are not alone. . ."

President Obama ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday. Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, these officials said. The 18-page classified report, they said, grapples with a problem that has bedeviled the White House’s approach toward Egypt and other countries in recent days: how to balance American strategic interests and the desire to avert broader instability against the democratic demands of the protesters.

Iranian authorities have called for a mass rally tomorrow to express "hatred" against the "evil" opposition that rattled the government on Monday by staging its first street protests for a year. Defiantly, the opposition Green movement's two main leaders, MirHossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi, yesterday issued fresh verbal onslaughts against the government, despite demands from hardliners they be hanged. The regime's call for an orchestrated show of popular muscle came as clashes erupted at the funeral of one of two students killed in Monday's anti-government protests.

SANA, YEMEN - Thousands of people continued to protest across Yemen on Wednesday, with hundreds of people taking to the streets of Sana, Taiz and other cities, in a bid to force the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the southern town of Taiz, demonstrators protesting for a sixth successive day said they were determined to keep on until the government was ousted. In Sana, at least 800 protesters marched through the streets near Sana University, Reuters reported, despite police efforts to break up the demonstration. Supporters of the ruling party, meanwhile, have set up camp in Tahrir Square, building large tents and occupying the area day and night to keep out anti-government protesters.

Pearl Square, Bahrain: Police swarm in through clouds of tear gas.

MANAMA—Riot police stormed a square occupied by anti-government protesters Thursday, driving them out with tear gas and rubber bullets and destroying a makeshift encampment that had become the demonstrators' rallying point. At least two people were killed in the pre-dawn assault on Pearl Square, the main opposition group Al Wefaq said. There was no official word on deaths or injuries. After riot police regained control of the plaza, they chased protesters through sidestreets just as the dawn call for prayers rang out. “They attacked our tents, beating us with batons,” Jafar Jafar, 17, told Associated Press. “The police were lined up at the bridge overhead. They were shooting tear gas from the bridge."

"The power and allure of Palestine in Western radical circles is extraordinary. Palestine is the only issue they get excited about. But there is nothing progressive in their pro-Palestine fervour. It is not driven by future-oriented demands for economic development in a Palestinian homeland in the West Bank or Gaza. Instead it is driven by a view of Palestinians as the ultimate victims, the hapless and pathetic children of the new world order, who need kindly, wizened Westerners to protect them from Big Bad Israel.Today's pro-Palestine leftism is more anthropological than political. It treats Palestinians less as a people who ought to have certain democratic rights and more as an intriguing tribe to be prodded and preserved."

O'Neil an astute observer? Hardly. There's no difference between the anti-zionist protesters of today and the anti-apartheid protesters of the 80's; same grab-bag of lefty-feminist-academics who back then were accused of being communist dupes by the Thatchers and Reagans of the day, and would no doubt have been accused by O'Neil of being "kindly westerners protecting the poor blacks from the big bad Afrikaners". As Bev Oda might say, NOT. The pro-palestinians of today are motivated by what they perceive as a manifest injustice, supported or at least tolerated by the Powers That Be, and in that they differ not at all from the anti-apartheid protesters of the 80s.